Where on earth do I begin??

Once the fire was lit, I was ready to get started with my planning. My sweet girlfriend Sherri, who I love love love, has sent me various wedding blogs and ideas a few times a week over the last year, most of which I loved and swore I would incorporate into my wedding. But...all of these ideas for themes, favors, venues, invitation, cakes, decorations, gowns, etc., eventually started to just overwhelm me, which is exactly what I do NOT want.

First important attribute for wedding planning...FOCUS! There is no point in deciding on wedding favors when I have no venue, no bridal party, no dress, no caterer, no colors, no theme, no other solid ideas, and no real money to implement them if I did have them. So I set up a "wedding" folder in my email box and decided I'd look at her ideas again more thoroughly once I made some important decisions. While illuminated bags are an AWESOME idea...this probably isn't the best point in the planning process to be thinking about them.

The second important attribute that I learned, which I believe will be absolutely key for my wedding is to KISS -- KEEP IT SUPER SIMPLE! There are countless great ideas out there, but at the end of the day, there are only a few ideas and concepts that can actually make it into my wedding. And because this is all about D-I-Y and being budget-friendly, that limits the idea field even more. Add to that the fact that I want to be as stress-free as possible, and things are REALLY whittling down.

So I'm left with the list of things that are important:

• budget
• venue (which will be one of the largest contributors to the budget)
• guest list (which is ultimately determined by the venue)
• theme
• wedding party
• food

So those are the areas that I'm going to focus on. I also don't much care about the date, my only preference is for it to not be in the dead of winter or in the middle of summer. I prefer fall, so this gives me a LOT of planning time. My date will ultimately be decided by my venue selection and its availability. Decisions such as "what song will I walk down the aisle to"... are just not important at this stage in the game. Instead, I will spend my first month or two of planning devoted to the bulleted list above.